Telecoms providers and data-protection authorities are worried by the potential fallout of an upcoming European data-breach notification law, according to the European Network Information Security Agency.

"Gaining and maintaining the trust and buy-in of citizens that their data is secure and protected represents a potential risk to the future development and take-up of innovative technologies and higher value-added online services across Europe, and will be a key challenge for organisations," said the report.

The study found that electronic communications companies are concerned about the damage that breach notification could do to their brands. They also wanted guidance on how to prioritise breaches according to severity and advice on categorising types of data.

For their part, data-protection regulators are worried about having sufficient resources to cope with notification, a lack of sanctions, a lack of technical expertise, and how to raise data-protection awareness, according to Enisa.

Public confidence
The ePrivacy Directive gives businesses a legal impetus to guard against data breaches, in addition to the reputational impetus, according to the EU body. High-profile incidents of data loss and exposure have shaken public confidence in organisations' abilities to keep personal data safe, it said.

"Every day there seems to be headlines that personal data has been leaked, that someone has found a laptop on a train," Enisa data-breach expert Sławomir Górniak told ZDNet UK.

Organisations must gain public trust that personal data will not be divulged, otherwise they risk hindering the take-up of innovative technologies, according to Enisa. Measures such as encryption can mitigate the risk, said Górniak. "If you lose a laptop, and it's encrypted, and you have the keys, then this is not a data breach," he said.

Tom is a technology reporter for ZDNet.com, writing about all manner of security and open-source issues.Tom had various jobs after leaving university, including working for a company that hired out computers as props for films and television, and a role turning the entire back catalogue of a publisher into e-books.Tom eventually found tha...
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